Latest / Mythmakers / You Have Passed My Score by One - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 3 Ch 8

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You Have Passed My Score by One - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 3 Ch 8 · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is a podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creators brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and
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  today we continue our read through the Lord of the Rings, looking at it from an author's
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  point of view. And we have reached chapter 8 in the two towers and that's called the road
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  to Isengard. And this is one of those interesting chapters which is transitional and so not much
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  attention is given to it in filmic versions of it except for the very beginning and the very end.
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  But there is a lot to unpack in this and including a most beautiful passage of description
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  by Gimli and the glittering caves of Aglaron. So there's a lot to look forward to in this episode.
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  So just to get your head around what it contains it first of all starts with the immediate
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  after aftermath of the battle for Helmsteep. Then there is the journey of Third and Gandalf and his
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  entourage as they go to Isengard and they're not sure what they're going to meet there and then
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  there's a short comedic section at the end when they reunite with Mary and Pippin which is fabulous.
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  Anyway let's get down to business. So the first thing to note is how this starts. There's a
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  formality in the language here. We've been with these characters for a long time but there is a
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  return to their their full sort of titles. So we get Aragorn son of Arathon and Legolas the
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  Elf, Erkenbrand of Westford and so on. It is the roll call, the Battle of Honor roll call that comes
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  at the end of the successful defense of Helmsteep. And we only really zero in on a character when
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  it comes to Gimli because we get Gimli emerging from the Cames and what we're looking at is his
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  wound. He had no Helm and about his head was a linen band stained with blood but his voice was
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  loud and strong. He's the first one who actually emerges from this group with a sort of like
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  distinct about them and this is to set up the fact that the the game that they've been playing
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  this is the end of it. So he announces that he has managed to kill 42 and the last one his axe
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  is notched and then you get Legolas with his response. You have passed my score by one. This scene
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  is nicely done in the BBC audio version of it. I didn't like the Peter Jackson version of this
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  very much with Legolas shooting a dead body. It didn't seem very funny to me but
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  what I like about the Tolkien version of it is you get here it could be and I've always thought
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  this that Legolas is saying yeah of course you beat me. It's what a friend might say when they know
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  that someone really wants to win a game. Who knows? I mean an archer is unlikely to know exactly
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  how many they managed to kill but anyway I sometimes wonder if Legolas is handing the game over
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  to Gimli here because he's so relieved to see his friend alive that would be a nice touch.
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  Anyway the game is rapidly put aside and what they're now looking at is this mysterious forest that
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  has emerged and dealt with the orcs who had invaded the Vale and here we get the sign of the
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  nature of Gandalf because everybody on third and in particular is saying you know it must be
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  great sorcery that has brought it here and Gandalf is saying no I have but given good counsel in
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  peril and made use of the speed of shadow facts your own valor has done more and the stout legs
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  of the Westfold men marching through the night. Here for those who want to dig further into the
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  background if you want to see the other side of what was going on there is a passage in the
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  unfinished tales where you see Gandalf riding around the Westfold and elsewhere gathering people
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  together sending them to be at the right place at the right time there was a burial detail as well
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  which we meet later so if you want to put in the background detail do dig into that it's in the
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  unfinished tales. So the other part that we see about Gandalf here is his keynote really in response
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  to their amazement Gandalf laughed long and merrily this is one of the areas where the good and
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  the evil are set apart. The evil can laugh but they laugh with scorn. Merrily laughter belongs to the
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  good and this is often Gandalf's response it happens this again when on the fields of Kamalin it's
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  pure it's it's what we're fighting for this Merrily laughter and what I like here is that this
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  isn't a superhuman all knowing godlike figure he says and enjoys that there are things beyond his
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  can he says that what has happened with the horns and the ends coming it's better than my design
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  and better even than my hope the event has proved it's that thing that talking cherishes of the
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  Yucatastrophe the unexpected good that came out of something that felt desperately bad
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  you can find that on page 149 if you've got a three volume version of the Lord of the Rings
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  and he breaks here into a little riddle it has a sing song cadence
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  an iron was found or tree was hewn when young was mounted under moon and so on it's not explained
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  if it already existed or if he made it up but it has the feeling of being old law and he is
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  basically in this whole chapter Gandalf is a tease he he knows more than everybody else about
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  what's happened and he is underlining that here because he is talking about the ends that's the
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  answer to the riddle but they don't yet know that and Gandalf here is like the author in that he is
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  keeping the riders in suspense not giving them the answer in fact he has authored this whole
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  episode by being the person who connected all the parts together and you'll see there's some other
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  points where he doesn't actually say he could give an answer and he chooses not to
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  so the next debate is about should they go with Gandalf or should they stay behind because Gandalf
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  says I'm going to Eisengard and they think that means another battle but this time with a wizard
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  and you see how far they've all come because Theoden says I'm not going to doubt you any longer
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  just before the dawn I may have had my moment of doubt and Gandalf is then able to reassure he says
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  we go to a parley and not to a fight in other words we're going to talk not to fight and we get a
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  brief glimpse here of the master of Rohan getting underway and it's worth just making the connection here
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  to the fact that Tolkien is writing this at a time when people were being called up across the world
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  but particularly across the UK so there's a sense of a familiar background to him this idea of
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  word-being-center and people of fighting age being called up now as I was checking the details of
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  this chapter in the rather wonderful readers companion by Hammond and Skull there's some things
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  which in my addition might be corrected in yours because Tolkien was an absolute anti-sun
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  Christopher with loved precision and so there's some details here that were corrected in
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  editions after 2005 and my version is earlier and the one particular one is the moon the phases of
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  the moon have been corrected what does this say to us about being an author well I think what
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  it says is the world building that Tolkien has achieved is so dense so complete that things like
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  that can be corrected from being wrong which is extraordinary and perhaps it means
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  less in learning here that if you do have a long period in a novel why not follow this actually
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  work out timeings and moon phases and seasons properly so that you can correct it when it's wrong
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  and then you know Christopher of Tolkien is able to come in and say well I think this should be
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  the same thing happens about distances there is a precision here which is admirable and we should emulate
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  the other correction made here according to my notes is that one of the sad duties in the
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  aftermath of battle of course is the burials and there was a sentence about what happened to the
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  men of Dunland the men of Dunland were fighting on the side of the Orcs and Christopher put back
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  in a sentence which was left out of the type script by mistake which is that the men of Dunland
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  are also given a separate burial they aren't put with the Orcs but nor are they put with the
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  writers of Rohan why do we care about these things I guess in that case it's because it shows the
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  the value here that is a distinction made between Orcs and men it's one of the unsettling parts
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  of middle earth that some lives are worth more than others I guess the Orcs are lesser creations
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  I don't know it's it's an area which you accept as you read it but it certainly is difficult
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  isn't it anyway so we have a burial mound for men three burial mounds for men and a different one
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  for the Orcs less difficult and certainly more admirable is the role here Erkenbrand takes Erkenbrand
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  is we remember as bit much more of a role in the book than in any other versions I've seen of this
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  and he is showing mercy to the men of Dunland which is the key quality Gandalf is all about mercy
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  and compassion and that is also shown in all the good leaders they all have mercy farmy has mercy
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  in this case the writers of Rohan have mercy aragorn has mercy and you get here him showing it to
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  his enemies the men of Dunland and it transforms that relationship we also get here a mention of
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  the one named character who dies in this battle and that is Harmer do you remember that Harmer was
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  the person at the gate back in the chapters about Ederas who takes a risk to basically he's the
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  the hand behind events allowing certain things to happen he's the one who proposes air winners
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  the leader and so on so he's he's clearly a key person at the court and he's fallen in this
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  if you're trying to attract that character to the Peter Jackson films his harmer falls in that
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  added scene with the wild attack um yeah I mean those you can see why they add those scenes into a
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  film to sort of up the tempo but anyway he falls in battle here defending the gate
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  I notice this wonderful dissonant moment which I hadn't noticed or really at this time
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  and so I bring your attention to it which is just before they set out there's a song
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  we don't see the text but we hear it being sung so here we go it goes
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  the sun was already drawing near the hills upon the west of the cum when at last
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  Therodon and Gandalf and the companions rode down from the dike behind them were gathered a great
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  host both of the riders and of the people of westfold old and young women and children
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  who had come out from the caves a song of victory they sang with clear voices and then they fell
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  silent wondering what were chance for their eyes were on the trees and they feared them so it's
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  like their voices which have been raised sort of fade away against the terrifying prospect of
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  the of the woods the woods are like the primeval place that always challenged people in sort of
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  the northern northern hemisphere sort of often appears in fairy tales as the forbidden place
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  and there it's arrived on their doorstep and I love how their voices kind of fade away
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  so the riders have to follow Gandalf through this wood and how do you create the menace well
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  here a Tolkien does it by contrast so we've got things like the bowels being described like
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  searching fingers the roots like the limbs of strange monsters but we also have the contrast
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  so we've got the road which is like a there I sit like a yellow brick road or something is the
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  sort of safe passage marked path it has the deeping stream on one side and the sky open above
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  and full of golden light compared to the darkness either side and the strange cries of suffering
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  in the hidden depths and legolas is the one who sums it up he says he feels a great
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  coming from that wood and Tolkien allows the mystery of what becomes of the orcs to remain
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  and the Gandalf says no one will ever know their fate and it's true that what is unseen is more
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  scary than what is seen so for an author remember allowing that mystery and holding back and not
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  feeling need to explain the fate of everything because sometimes be more horrifying it's like
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  what people know from horror films when you see the monster the mystery goes but if you just
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  think what that it is present it's much more frightening so the next part of this chapter is
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  taken up really with the elf and dwarf cultures and this is one of the passages that is
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  a completely stand out beautiful moment which I would urge you to go back and read it is
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  probably I think until we get to the end it's the most exciting part of this chapter because it is
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  gimli talking with this great lequacious outburst of the caves that he had to take refuge in during
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  the battle he tells legolas and he keeps saying legolas every few lines as legolas legolas it's
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  like he's trying to you know really get his attention he says that the murkwood caves were but
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  hovels legolas son of a king his palace here is being described as a hovel very not very
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  tactful gimli but the contrast is there he's not saying they are hovels but they are as if they were
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  because he has seen immeasurable halls filled with an everlasting music of water that tinkles
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  into pools as fair as kelle zaram in the starlight it's on page 150 to 153 of my edition it's too
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  long to quote but it does go on with this beautiful evocation of the experience of being in in
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  these caves and in response legolas gives a bit of a feeble quick he says oh a family of doors
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  would come and you know mine all these he misses the mood and so gimli has to say no you don't
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  understand no dwarf could be unmoved by such loveliness none of durians race would mine those caves
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  for stones or not if diamonds and golds could be got there do you cut down groves of blossoming trees
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  springtime for firewood and that really gets through to legolas and this is the the seed of their
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  bargain where one one of them will gimli will take legolas there on their return and he will go with
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  legolas to fangle so how has Tolkien thought about these caves or where has he come across them
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  and he mentions in later life that these caves were inspired by cheddar gorge which are in the
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  mendips so if you're thinking of the map of the UK or England they're down in the western part
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  on the way down towards Cornwall but not as far fairly near Bristol and he visited those at least
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  twice he visited once on honeymoon so no doubt that was a very romantic experience and he
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  visited it again in 1940 during the course of the war so very recently to the time of writing
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  if the world were like a sleep number mattress everything would adapt for your comfort
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  because as your life changes and your body changes sleep number mattresses adapt and shift to
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  give you personalized comfort night after night and now it's the final days of our everything's
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  sleep number to a good life sleep and it reminds you that there are places that stay with an author
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  so perhaps in your own writing if you're listening to this as a writer if you have a place that
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  you keep circling back to that has an emotional charge for you this is a good place to put in your
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  fantasy but in a fantasy build up to the extent of your fantasy world clearly cheddar gorge
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  know how wonderful it is is not as great as this place in middle earth talking as allowed himself
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  to sort of big it up to imagine an even more marvellous place and I was wondering about this
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  are there any other similar passages because we do stop in terms of the well they are writing on a
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  horse so now they are still moving on it's passing the time of the journey but there are similar
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  passages are a few occasions in this work and the two that came to mind were when gimley has
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  and he's already done this it's in the passage in moria when they are talking about how moria
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  used to be gimley explains how beautiful it used to be and there's another long passage which
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  then also has a song which he sings in the hall where they are overnighting and that has a similar
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  sense of poetry but it's nostalgic and then another passage which we have much more recently seen
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  is the account that tree beard gave of how the woods used to be in his youth and to jog your memory
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  he talks about just standing and breathing for a week he's describing there to marion pipin and
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  again it's nostalgia to a lost world what I find intriguing and different about this passage
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  because mostly we're talking about a world that is vanishing is going that's often the sort of
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  melancholy of middle earth here it's actually future looking gimley is projecting a future for
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  these caves a return visit what the dwarves could do he says we should make lights we should make
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  lights such lamps as once shone in chasadum and when we wished we would drive away the night that
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  has lain there since the hills were made and when we desired rest we would let the night return
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  I love that the idea that they would relinquish it and let the night come back to its natural state
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  so I think what is happening here is different from those other passages because gimley is
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  hinting beyond the end of this story it's not all about loss there is some gain some gains to
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  be made to balance out the melancholy of the loss of the elves and the loss of the beauty of the
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  past ages so this little section closes with a teasing comment from Gandalf Gandalf is very he's
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  a complete tease in this in this chapter let's just face it because I don't know if he's been
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  listening in but he comes back and says when they're talking about how far how far to go and what
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  will they see Gandalf says he doesn't know yet I think that you will not say that the journey was
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  in vain not though the glittering caves of agglorant are left behind so he knew they existed he's got
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  the name for them and just to unpack some of that beautiful naming that Tolkien does that word agglorant
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  means basically glittering cave agglor brilliance and ronde is vault or high roofed cavern it's
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  always lovely to unpack these these words to see what Tolkien is getting at so during their journey
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  they are just about at this point leaving this temporary wood as we would call it of the horns
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  and Legolas sees eyes in the trees so he sees the answer to the riddle without making that connection
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  he sees some ent eyes and there's this comedic bit where he wants to go and see them and give me
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  saying no no put me down put me down and Gandalf has to restrain Legolas to say remember the mission
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  now is not your time and we get a glimpse here of the ends coming out of the wood
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  and they're described again as if we're seeing them for the first time this is because
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  we are in the point of view of the companions Gimli and Legolas
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  not so much arable because he hasn't been present very much in this part but very often the
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  perspective is actually the riders it's a sort of joint perspective and so in order to give that
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  freshness we're seeing them described again as if for the first time there's this connection
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  in Tolkien's mind between the heron and ence you may wonder why well herons are very common birds to
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  be seen in the UK we don't have so many things like stalks but it's the the herons are our
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  waiting bird who have the kind of stride pattern that he imagines for the the ence
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  and we get here the idea that there are different worlds even within the world of Middle-Earth
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  Gandalf says they are not concerned with us at all and that note is often struck by Tolkien it's
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  the Tom Bombadil issue his matters aren't our his battles aren't ours and we get it later in that
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  encounter with the wild men of the word Gamburi Garn people creatures move in different
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  circles and it expands in the world building that there are things that we don't touch because
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  we're just in one part of it but there is so much more going on elsewhere so the the king who
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  has marveled at seeing the ends go by he says something which is so talking it comes in the middle
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  of page 155 where he is grappling with the smallness of their lives
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  we cared little for what lay beyond the borders of our land fangorn is literally just over the border
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  songs we have that tell of these things but we are forgetting them teaching them only to children
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  as a careless custom and now the songs have come down among us after strange places and walk
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  visible under the sun and he goes on to say it yet also I should be sad for however the
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  fortune of war shall go may it not so end that much that was fair and wonderful shall pass
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  forever out of Middle-Earth so if you remember I was saying that the Gimli passage about the
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  caves of Aglarond is one of the sort of hopeful after-math of battle. Theodin here is talking much
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  more on the more the note that struck more often the one of things are passing things are going
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  to be lost it's what Galadriel said that if the ring is destroyed the power of the elven rings
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  will probably also go and the world is moving on and Gandalf's response to that is to say but to
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  such days we are doomed I think there are a number of things to connect to here one is a glumia echo
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  of his famous words to Frodo about all we have to decide is what to do with the time that's
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  given to us you know we're in dark times that's what we have to deal with but it's also I think a
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  sense of how Tolkien felt about the development of the 20th century much of what he had loved
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  and remembered from his youth was passing it lived through two world wars this need to be a
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  coarsening and worsening of life for him so it is a contemporary reflection he is making there
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  and that's a reminder that fantasy often is about the present moment of the writer as well as
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  about some imagined fantasy world and it does give an emotional weight to what the characters
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  are experiencing it feels real it feels relatable and so is if you've got something equivalent
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  so modern fantasy for example often does something similar with the feeling of environmental
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  stress and degradation so that's the kind of meat and drink of a fantasy writer is the look for that
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  what you feel strongly about how you connect to our world and bring that into your own fantasy creation
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  so they're now riding riding on the way to Eisengaard and here we get another lovely little passage
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  untouched by film or audio version we see the moon is the moon is they're riding by night
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  so they aren't observed so in the moonlight in its cold silver light the swelling grass lands
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  rose and fell like a wide gray sea talking often reaches for the sea as an image for that for
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  things on land it will come up again but is describing Eisengaard and it also connects of course
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  to the importance of the sea it voyages across the sea numerator the undying land so it's all part of
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  his imagery that he keeps like poetry weaving into his prose and as they ride they discover that
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  the river Eisen is missing and Emma blames Saruman for the lack of river and here comes Gandalf the
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  tease again so it would seem says Gandalf but you don't say oh yeah it's the the ends have done this
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  they've they flooded Eisengaard none of that he just is letting them discover the unfolding of it
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  he doesn't relieve the tension he's waiting to show them what has happened
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  then we get a section about the burial at the Fords why waste time on this it's not that particular
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  battle doesn't happen in this story there is a connection of course to the death of Theodrid
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  and the scattering of the riders of Rohan which you can read about in the unfinished tales in more
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  detail so why bother with this section one could imagine a modern day editor would be saying
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  not necessary striking it through well I think what it for me stands for is the fact that talking
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  is always aware of the bigger picture the bigger battles happening in and around his narrative
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  things are happening up north things are happening down south you don't see everything
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  and I think this reflects his experience of real war when he was on the western front in the
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  first world war he would have come across places where others had already fought where ground had
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  been lost and won on a frontier he would have seen fortifications occupied by the enemy and lost
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  by the enemy and this sense that there is a moving frontier of the battle gives it us what you
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  would call very similitude there's also here a respect for the dead so perhaps it worried him
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  that there was a feeling of unburied bodies and in a way he's wanting to show that people deserve
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  not to be left in no man's land but given a respectful war grave and that's what's happened here
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  when they're resting on the banks of the river which is empty there is an interesting
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  choreography happening so you get this creepy passing of the horns which I won't name they're
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  described like a black shadow and then we get this little throwback to how the people of Helm's
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  Deep see the leaving of the wood and what's been left behind the burial of the orcs in
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  something called the death down where no one goes and then we come back so the orcs have gone
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  towards Eisengard and then in the night the river comes back the other way so there's sort of like
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  the past the pastings go first towards Eisengard and then away from it and the king Gandalf
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  they are the still point around which these pastings are happening there's a little point but it's
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  sort of part of the lovely weaving of Tolkien's prose he thinks of these things
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  they arrive on the approach to Eisengard into the wizards veil and this is like a foretaste
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  of the much more ravaged landscape that Frodo and Sam are going to see it's a sad country
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  and treeless and there is a pause here another pause but this is a more familiar pause this is a
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  pause for description for a landscape we had one for Helm's Deep we've had them for
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  other important locations in the story we'll get them for ministerial great for anyone who's
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  trying to make a film with this because it's all laid out for you exactly what you need to know
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  and we get the description of what it had been a place of gardens and trees to what it is now a
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  place of pillars and chains it's a great description well we're going back to one phrase I've picked out
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  that sort of sums up the ugliness of what they are looking at it's like the graveyard of the
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  unquiet dead so a living place has now a place of death denuded of anything of beauty and as a
• 34:15
  lot going on under the ground of course with the pits and cabins that have been excavated
• 34:25
  and I suppose that stands for the undermining so Saramand has undermined his own character he's
• 34:32
  undermined what that place once stood for so there is a sense of that connecting to his
• 34:39
  turn to evil and then we get a little dip into talking wordplay where Orfank can mean in
• 34:48
  Elven languages Mount Fang and in the language of the mark cunning mind and I'm sure he absolutely
• 34:55
  loved that fortuitous the way it broke down in the two languages but Saramand shouldn't get too big
• 35:07
  for his boots because it is dismissed as being a little copy a child's model of Baradur thinking
• 35:17
  about this as a story one of the intriguing things of course is that we never actually confront
• 35:24
  the bad guy the big bad guy we see his lesser versions particularly Saramand but also the
• 35:35
  witch king but the actual eye himself is present in the ring and indirectly because he is disembodied
• 35:45
  and so he is represented by things that are not him the ring the tower more door itself
• 35:54
  and you hold back you don't give in book two or in fact is book three in talking scheme but
• 36:02
  anyway you don't give in the middle of this story the biggest baddest tower you hold back on that
• 36:10
  and so the emphasis here is that this is just a shadow of the big shadow as they ride past the
• 36:20
  once proud pillar with the white hand we're again in the rider's point of view we see that the
• 36:26
  hand is blood stained no longer white this joint points of view is fascinating I'm going to be
• 36:33
  looking out to see if he does it with other armies but he does seem to often dip into seeing the
• 36:40
  Rohan as a group that have a single point of view that he enjoys being in and our tease Gandalf
• 36:51
  brings it all together by presenting us with the answer to the riddle with the kind of
• 37:00
  dramaturg skill because as they arrive at the gates the misclear the sun shines and they're at
• 37:08
  the doors of eyes and guard so we continue with how Tolkien describes it but the doors lay
• 37:17
  hurled and twisted on the ground and all about stone cracked and splintered into countless jagged
• 37:24
  was scattered far and wide or piled in ruinous heaps so there's a couple of things going on here more
• 37:32
  than the couple we've got the surprise for the riders who Gandalf didn't say he said we're going
• 37:39
  for a parley but they didn't know they were going to a ruin to a battle that's already been lost by
• 37:44
  Saruman he kept that back but we also as readers have known that Mary and Pippin and the
• 37:54
  Ents were headed for Eisengaard and the last we heard is that maybe they were going to their doom
• 38:02
  so the nail biting what has happened to Mary and Pippin still not completely answered yet
• 38:08
  but we knew there was a possibility that Saruman may have been caught unawares by the arrival of the
• 38:17
  Ents and the hints have been tending that way with the arrival of the horns and the other Ents
• 38:23
  so we were had slightly more knowledge than the riders and we get another of Tolkien's
• 38:28
  sea imagery here he says if the great sea had risen in Roth and fallen on the hills with storm
• 38:36
  it could have worked no greater ruin so we get the sense of an elemental force that has undone
• 38:43
  or thanked it's a wonderful description it's on page 161 in bi version it's well worth just
• 38:52
  looking at it full of lovely details that sum up this devastation ending with still dark and
• 39:04
  unbroken by the storm the Tower of Orsanque stood pale waters lacked about its feet remember
• 39:11
  Orsanque wasn't made by Saruman it was made by the men of Numenor so that's not been destroyed
• 39:17
  whereas a lot of Saruman's lesser works have been so we are in the point of view of the king
• 39:23
  and the company who are marveling and then we get the answer that some of them had been waiting for
• 39:32
  there they saw close beside them a great rubble heap and suddenly they were aware of two small
• 39:38
  figures lying on it at their ease greyclad hardly to be seen among the stones there were bottles
• 39:46
  and bowls and platters laid beside them as if they had just eaten well and now rested from their
• 39:52
  labour so we know our hobbits well enough now to know who they are but we are also getting
• 39:59
  one of these rider point of view moments because they are seeing the hobbits are fresh
• 40:05
  for the first time one seemed asleep the other with cross legs and arms behind his head lean back
• 40:12
  against a broken rock and sent from his mouth long wisps and little rings of thin blue smoke
• 40:18
  so Mary is the one who digs deep and finds the right words one of the interesting things about
• 40:25
  this comedic passage which is just lovely it's we've been waiting for this the relief is huge
• 40:32
  when they are reunited with their friends and we as the readers feel it and it's expressed as well
• 40:41
  in some lovely exchange that follows but just a little moment here um Mary is putting on his company
• 40:49
  manners he calls himself Mary Aduk son of Sarah Dock and Peregrin son of Paladin who is
• 40:58
  kicking awake a bit of a nice bass horse there amongst the high-faluting language
• 41:03
  Sarah Dock shows the Welsh vaguely Celtic routes that talking wanted for that normal
• 41:11
  lecture and Paladin is purposely gothic for the toaks because he saw those as an older family
• 41:21
  just so the language gives a hint of what he thought of the history of the various hobbit families
• 41:28
  Mary is wonderfully dry here um he explains um gravely that in answer to Gandalf's questions
• 41:39
  that his orders come from Treebeard who has taken over the management of Eisengaard
• 41:47
  great I mean he's matching Gandalf here for sort of rhinos isn't he no wonder Gandalf loves the
• 41:53
  hobbits they share his sense of humour and so after this restraint Gimli's outburst is just fabulous
• 42:02
  what about your companions a fine hunt you have led us 200 leagues through fenn and forest battle
• 42:09
  and death to rescue you how he finds you feasting and idling and smoking smoking and so on
• 42:16
  wonderful stuff including the um the insult you woolly footed and wool-pated trance so his
• 42:24
  letting loose here and even legolas gets a little sly um moment here because he says oh yeah
• 42:33
  like you speak for me Gimli though I would soon learn how they came by the wine
• 42:38
  their double act is just priceless and in response to this banter which of course
• 42:45
  everyone is not joining in I bet he's laughing um third and says it cannot be touted that we
• 42:53
  witness the meeting of dear friends and then he goes on to reveal that the hobbits are not
• 43:00
  unknown to him and his people that his people call them the hobbit land which obviously is quite
• 43:09
  close to hobbit um and it means in their language holddweller and then you get this exchange with
• 43:15
  Mary where um rather disappointingly it always makes me laugh every time I read this that
• 43:24
  uh Mary is astonished to find anyone's heard of them and then says well there are no legends of
• 43:30
  their deeds and we get here Mary launching into the more important for the hobbits perspective
• 43:37
  that their deeds are really of um you know eating and drinking and smoking he starts to tell the
• 43:42
  history of pipeweed now originally apparently Tolkien put a lot of lot more here but he then
• 43:50
  cut it out and moved it to the preface which was a good decision because we would like Gandalf
• 43:57
  want to interrupt and say these hobbits will sit on the edge of ruin and discuss the pleasures of
• 44:02
  the table and so on if you encourage them with undue patience um we don't want to get sidetracked to
• 44:11
  that extent so Gandalf and Thedon and their people are sent off to meet treebeard and Gandalf here
• 44:20
  interestingly calls treebeard you will hear the speech of the oldest of all living things
• 44:27
  much scholarly ink has been spilt over who is the oldest thing in middle earth
• 44:33
  is it Tom Bombardill what about the elves I think the idea here is
• 44:40
  in a way Tom Bombardill is more like a more like Gandalf more like a spirit or a
• 44:49
  emanate you know something almost demigodish about Tom whereas treebeard is a tree or an ent
• 44:58
  tree so a living thing creaturely thing of middle earth so maybe that's how you can square that circle
• 45:08
  and as they ride off leaving the hobbits with legular skimney and arrogant the hobbits give Thedon a big
• 45:17
  thumbs up from them he is their kind of king the hobbits bowed low so that is the king of
• 45:23
  Rohan so pipping in an undertone a fine old fellow very polite so this connection between the
• 45:32
  youngest of the the men folk we meet in terms of culturally the people of Rohan they are very close
• 45:40
  or understand in some ways better than many the hobbits who are also another sort of
• 45:49
  a child like young people in many ways their history is not very long or very vulnerable
• 45:55
  not much has happened if the legends are to be believed so there is a connection there between
• 46:01
  the two which is cemented at this moment and there we leave it before the meeting of the friends
• 46:09
  and a description of what has quite happened to Eisengaard thank you very much for listening
• 46:19
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